random travel thoughts

so i'm in DC today after a short trip from fort lauderdale. missed the beach entirely, which is a real shame but c'est la vie. the one thing i did learn at the convention in fort lauderdale is the difference b/w the crappy enterprise-oriented tradeshows i had been going to and consumer-style tradeshows. i was quickly taught how to barter with software for lots of other goods, everything from dvds to games and music. big win! i'd show up with an armful of norton internet security and i would receive the happy greeting of "you looking to trade?" why yes my friend, i am. it turned out so well that the resulting booty from my bartering forced me to have a small box shipped back with all the goodies. woohoo!!! i'm liking this new job already :-)

what the hell has happened to people's mobile manners? had a cabbie in fort lauderdale that was *texting* while driving me to the hotel. today in d.c., had a female bartender that couldn't be bothered to take my order since she was chatting away on her side kick for 5 mins while i prompted with ever louder "excuse me's". wtf???!!!

if you ever get to D.C., don't miss Georgia Brown's or Zaytinya. very different restaurants but both out of this world food.

one my pet peeves of travel is the airport change-up. that is, when you finish with a formal meeting and only have the trip home on front of you and you want to swap out the suit you're in for the jeans, t-shirt and sneakers you packed for a relaxing trip home. this means an extended stay in a bathroom stall, almost all of which have very convenient and hygenic auto-flush features. the problem is if i'm changing, i'm setting off the auto-flush about 13 times before i can get out of the bathroom. the scenario goes something like this...

dave: open suitcase, shuffling off dress pants and shirt while reaching for jeans and t-shirt
flush #1
dave: oh here we go... (packing dress clothes, reaching for sneakers)
flush #2
dave: sigh. putting on jeans and tshirt.
flush #3
dave: i can nearly visualize the temperature in the arctic rising and some poor penguin passing out from heat exhaustion. clothes on, putting on sneakers, tying shoes...
flush #4
dave: i can hear the ice in greenland cracking at the pressure i'm putting on the
fresh water supply. whales have changed their migratory patterns and PETA
representatives are protesting outside our home for the impact i've had on baby
seal habitats

... I'll spare you the rest of the details, but by the time I'm done the
robot-toilet has flushed no less than 12 times and i've visualized myself
kick-boxing with al gore while eco-armageddon takes place around us. makes me
want to go and recycle something, or get a massage.

overheard in fort lauderdale

police officer to crowd of people in front of jamba juice at 10pm (!?):
"if you are not patrons, leave the area"

person in the crowd:
"what did he say? sumthin' 'bout patriots?"

another person in the crowd:
"he's trying to figger out what country we're from."

hey, i think i figured it out. check please. tomorrow: off to washington DC.

current playlist

subterranean homesick alien - radiohead - ok computer
elementary lover - matthew dear - asa breed
pogo - digitalism - idealism
don't you evah - spoon - ga ga ga ga
seconds - fat freddy's drop - midnight marauders vls
shoot to thrill - acdc - back in black
crocodile - underworld - oblivion with bells
d.a.n.c.e. - justice - cross
you'll find a way (switch & sinden remix) - santogold - single
luz azul - aterciopelados - oye
stairway to heaven - rodrigo y gabriela - rodrigo y gabriela

... and huge kudos to radiohead for offering their new album solely online *for what their fans want to pay*. brilliant! it may or may not work, but a very brave gesture nonetheless. that noise you heard earlier in the week was the record label executives falling off their chairs. via this type of exploration, there's hope that we'll arrive at a reasonable model for paying artist for their work without the burden of money-leeching middle-men spoiling the music industry. onward!

early autumn musings

so we've moved into our new home here in santa monica and are in escrow on my old bachelor pad just a mile up the road. phew! it's all been pretty maddening given the crappy market and prolonged move (took about 2.5 months) but we've finally arrived to our "big people" home with free-standing walls (no more condos!) and 600 extra square feet. i don't know how it happened but every inch of the new space we have seems to be inhabited by clothes or shoes jane had squirreled away previously. ah well...

the pic to the right was taken on my way to the airport in des moines, iowa. definitely *not* the 105 or sepulveda! i was there for my very last threat landscape presentation, which was cathartic. i've given the presentation 20+ times and have all my jokes, cues, etc lined up to the point that it is an act of some sorts. as of the 17th of this month i officially joined the consumer team at symantec and have been plunged headlong into the wacky world of creating software for families, grandmas and those little dogs that people stuff into purses. so far, so good. i've had a chance to muse a bit while transitioning and ask myself what i've learned in my nearly 12 years of working post-college. the big lesson i've learned can be summed up by the following quote: "One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say" - Will Durant. being a chatty fellow and having more than my fair share of opinions, i've learned over time that the best thing i can do if i'm not certain of my take on a subject is just to shut-up. not very deep, but really useful. it never ceases to amaze me how many people speak when they should simply be listening.


the shot to the right this time was from the korean festival jane and i went to with her mom a weekend or 2 ago. the festival was in k-town, but close enough to latino neighborhoods to draw them in as well. pretty entertaining to see all the koreans and a strong contingent of mexicans who showed up for the festivities as well, not wanting to miss out on a party. pretty fun :-) oh yeah, the foto: a shot of the beauty pageant that was going on while we were though. pretty goofy given the tuxes, near bridal gowns and the fact that they were surrounded by dirt floors, cell phone company promotions and bemused mexicans wondering what the hell the 2 for $5 duk-bo-gi they bought *really* was.

if the picture looks a little better than normal it's b/c i've had a new phone for about 3 weeks now: the nokia e61i. it has its moments, but overall it is the best smart phone i've had. wayyyy better than the anemic moto Q i was more than happy to ditch. the only thing i will miss is bubble breaker! bb was the best cell-phone game ever. small price to pay for a reliable phone with a good camera that works almost exactly how you think it should.

summer close

well, the air is getting a little crisper here in los angeles and summer seems to be winding down. in my mind, we pretty much officially put it to bed with the underworld performance at the bowl this past sunday which marks the end of the year's world music series.

paul oakenfold kicked it off with carmen rizzo and bored the bowl with played-out trance anthems. poor paul never quite could make the cut beyond his early success breaking other people's reasonably good records to pilled out ravers. growing his hair out didn't get him any closer to the next level either, now not only does he sound tired, but he looks like one of those cavemen from the geico commercials. arrogant bastard also shamelessly promo'd his record-label "perfecto music" in the video visuals. when his logo wasn't spinning around like so much bad powerpoint, it was emblazoned on a hot asian chick who in a purple bodysuit with the perfecto label on her chest. subtle...

underworld started slow with tracks from their forthcoming album "oblivion with bells". note to underworld: if you haven't done a new album in 3 years, you might want to warm us up a little with some old stuff. the new stuff was somewhere between the old breaky beats and the newer atmospheric electronica they've showed off on efforts like the breaking and entering soundtrack. regardless, they returned to form in the second half with rez cowgirl, 100 days off, bornslippy and king of snake. freakin' fantastic stuff. karl hyde is still a great performer and they always put on a solid visual show. they did "jumbo" as an encore, which was a strange choice that was a little anti-climactic. regardless, one of the best bowl performances i've seen in a while and rivaled a strong performance by groove armada earlier in the summer.

vacaciones

hola de playa del carmen! the internet connection finally got up and running here the other day, it was one of many minor casualties of hurricane dean. while he was little more than a tropical storm here, the mexicans say that "dean nos despeino un poco" (messed up our hair a little).


jane and i did a whale shark snokeling trip-- after a few hundred dives and not seeing a freakin' whale shark i figured the mountain was definitely not coming to muhammad this time. so i strapped on a snorkel and let the mexicanos hunt down the world's biggest fish for us. while we only saw 3 of them (other days they've seen loads, b/w 10-20 or 60-70 even), i'd definitely recommend it if you grew up watching jacques cousteau shows like i did. pretty damn cool. the picture here is definitely not one we took, but you'll get the idea. the one downside of doing a whale shark trip rather than naturally encountering them is that you get 3 boats of about 70 ppl circling 1-2 poor whalesharks, hopping into the water and swimming in their face until the whale shark reaches peak irritation and dives down well beyond a snorkeler's reach. i'm pretty sure jacques would frown on this, but i'm older now and realizing that his is french i naturally think less of his opinion than previously ;-)

if you make it down to "playa", make sure you grab dinner at yaxche and that you spend an afternoon down in tulum at the ruins and the impeccable beach club, ana y jose. ana y jose is a very cool little hotel with a beach club that costs about 8 bucks per person. cheap drinks, good food, nice tunes, shaded loungers, and miles of white sandy beach. tip o' the sombrero to dean for the great recommendations on both places.


another of the highlights was the cenote diving at the cenote dive center. cenotes are a fancy spanish word for "cave filled with water". i drove down to tulum (this time solito) to dive a couple cenotes for the afternoon. we did the "calaveras" & "grand cenote", both which were impressive. calaveras was cool due to the presence of a halocline, a layer of fresh water sitting on top of the salt water below it. i'd never seen a halocline before so diving it was really interesting. it basically makes a oily, hazy mess of the water in front of you when you transition b/w layers of water. given that you're trying to follow someone about 7 feet on front of you in a dark cave, the effect, while interesting, is also a little unnerving.


the grand cenote was more accessible and had a lot more people there (both snorkeler's and divers) in contrast to the calaveras where we hiked a little ways into a mosquito-infested jungle before jumping into a hole 10 feet below us. there's a reason for this: it's a lot more impressive. the grand cenote is a cavernous system with towering stalactites and stalagmites you swim around. as you cruise through the passages, you occassionally get a glimpse of the emerald green water near the open air. the affect is indescribably cool. the best part was coming back at the end and looking at the 3 ladders dangling in the water, which under the brilliant green water and surrounded by the cave seemed like something out of a fairy tale (or, being a bit dorkier than most, the game "myst"). i was more than happy to climb out of the rabbit hole, however, as for the last 10 minutes i couldn't stop thinking " sweet lord what would happen if there was an earthquake and we were stuck in here?"

alright, time for a little more chilean wine and neil gaiman's "fragile things". hasta pronto,
--dave
btw, thanks to whoever took the pics!

current playlist

m.i.a. - boyz - kala
how we operate - gomez - live session, kcrw
don dinero - aterciopelados - oye
una hoja una raiz - aterciopelados - red hot and latin redux
a million babies - owusu & hannibal - living with...
medusa - ulirch schnauss - goodbye
young pilgrams - the shins - chutes too narrow
das spiegel - chemical brothers - we are the night
que bom - mocean worker - cinco de mowo
peacock tail - boards of canada - campfire headphase
twilight - UNKLE feat. 3d - war stories

jacked bank account, illustrated

i've worked in security for a very longggggggggg time. it's often hard to explain to people the impact of online threats. i've found that statistics don't mean much to people in this area other than biznesses trying to justify corp expenditures. the only things that have really driven consumer purchases in info security have been massive worms which crippled computers and then spyware & adware which also had a direct, visible impact. well, both of those have gone away to be replaced by silent crimeware which steals data. so what happens when your bank account gets jacked by the baddies in belarus? the photo here was taken from our online fraud community monitoring tool and is still available online from a photo sharing site. the thief was either bragging or showing off the wares for purchase.
my basic advice? keep your system & apps (esp. internet explorer) up-to-date, use security s/w, and anything that looks to good to be true most certainly is trying to pull one over on you. if you need sec s/w, ping me.

socal livin' snippets

i felt my first real earthquake last week here in socal. it was a 4.6 shaker centered out of chatsworth. of all irony, my earthquake policy on our condo had just run out a couple days beforehand. while it messed with my head a little (i was doing some late evening work when it hit) and woke jane up out of bed, nothing seemed to be much affected. after a few days of mulling it over, i'm thinking of cancelling the policy on the new place :-) tectonic plates, is that all you got baby?!

this shot is from the window looking out the back of our new place. you'd think we were moving to backwoods alabama, eh? instead, this is lovely santa monica. 2 houses down is a beautiful new 2 unit condo with modern stylings and the like. right behind us? sanford and sons. on the left of the new casa? pit bull in the all-dirt backyard with an F150. choloville, amigo. all of this for the price of stifling mortgage that would make my midwestern family blush, if not faint. i'm not one to keep up with the joneses, but i don't necessarily want to raise kids in front of a methlab either. if anyone knows the patron saint of gentrification, let me know and i'll offer up an old testament style burnt sacrifice in hopes of neighbor displacement.

on a lighter note, jane and i went to see reggae night VI at the bowl this past sunday. wailing souls were playing along with sly and robbie as well as burning spear. wailing souls were boring and burning spear was unimpressive. sly and robbie didn't disappoint, especially their numbers with cherine anderson (taxi gang). where the hell was horace andy though?

ah well, the event of the evening were the colorful characters sitting in front of us. the lady in yellow highlighted an, uh, interesting new trend: bluetooth headset as fashion piece. while she didn't get a call during the show (how could you with the noise and bad reception?) the little red motorola headset was in her ear the whole time. i looked around the bowl and sure enough, saw a handful of other people doing the same. am i missing something here? bluetooth headset = fannypack. even if it matches your shirt and finger nail polish.

uneasy street

well, i've been pretty lame about blogging lately but i have really good excuses. first off, i'm in the midst of taking on a new job. won't be in it officially until mid-sept but i'm starting to ramp up now. big learnings ahead! should be fun. next up is our new house which closed a couple of weeks ago. while this would normally be really exciting, we've been on the market for about 2 months now with our condo with no offers. yikes!

anyways, enough with the excuses. i thought i'd share a view of what i see when i drive into the rampart district of LA (west of downtown) to pick up my pal jonathan on sundays. most ppl don't know this but the rampart district has the 2nd highest population density in the US, next to manhattan. and it isn't due to the high rises, it's largely attributable to the masses of latino immigrants crowding their familes into tiny apartments.

elcome to uneasy street. this is a shot looking down the alleyway into a nearby park that is infamous for aggressive street people and thugs. tagging and gang violence is normal here. since i've known jonathan, 3 of his acquaintances and pals have been shot and killed. for someone under 18, that's insane.
this was laying on the side of the street in front of me while i waited for jonathan. anyone else find dolls a little creepy? especially when their heads are poking out of abandoned suitcases? they were gone from the suitcase when i returned that evening. apparently someone found them more interesting than disturbing.
iraq or LA? this is the entrance to the apt bldg next door.
i hope our politicians, mission workers and other global do-gooders realize that we have serious needs here at home. time to focus on cleaning our own house for a change?